SEVENTEEN

Confrontations

 

 

We came back to Tenochtitlan two days later, at dawn. Fog hung heavily over the canals and the streets, clinging in wisps to the houses even after sunrise. The air was humid and sweltering. Overhead, there were no clouds yet, but the rain would not be long in coming.

I sent Palli and Ezamahual back to the temple; Neutemoc, his slave Tepalotl and I went back to Neutemoc’s house.

Mihmatini was waiting for us in the courtyard, wearing a creased dress of cotton, embroidered with butterflies. Her face was as wan as the moon, and dark circles underlined her eyes. I had never seen her so tired.

”You shouldn’t be up so early,” I said.

She shook her head. “If I sleep, they’ll eat the wards.” She glanced at Neutemoc. “And your protection is almost gone. I need to renew that for you.”

”I thought you and Ceyaxochitl had everything under control when we left?” I asked, slowly, afraid of what she would answer me.

Mihmatini gave me a tired smile. “They’re either more powerful, or more numerous. Either way, I’m losing this battle.”

“You can’t stay here,” I said to Neutemoc.

He shook his head, angrily. “And whose fault is that?”

”Neutemoc,” Mihmatini said.

I bit back on a wounding retort. “Can we argue about responsibilities later? I need to get you and your household to–”

I contemplated the possibilities. Most temples weren’t warded, except perhaps for the Great Temple. But half of that belonged to Tlaloc. And, given what we now knew of Eleuia’s ties with that god, I wasn’t eager to find refuge there.

”We’ll go to the Duality House,” I said, at last. “That’s large enough to hold us all.” At least, while I worked out what I did next. I’d have to go back to the Jaguar House, and ask Mahuizoh about Eleuia’s ambitions.

”The Duality House?” Neutemoc asked, incredulous. “My whole household? Acatl, it’s one thing to take me on a fruitless journey–”

I cut him off, with no effort to be civil. “That wasn’t fruitless, unless you want to deny what happened in that so-called shrine to the Duality. And I’m not taking risks.”

He stared at me: weary, cynical, angry. “Priests hide and run away. Warriors don’t.”

Warriors and priests. Why in the Fifth World did it always have to come to the same thing?

I’d had enough of that. I said, sharply, “You can stay here if that satisfies your pride. I’m not seeing Mihmatini and your children die like Quechomitl.”

”He died because you involved him in this,” Neutemoc snapped.

I shook my head. “He died because he defended you. That’s all.”

”He would have had no need to defend me if you hadn’t interfered.”

Interfered? I’d risked my career to prove him innocent, and that was all he could find to say to me? I said, “I wasn’t the one who drove Huei against you. You did that yourself.”

This, as I had expected, wounded him. His eyes narrowed; his muscles tensed, readying for a leap in my direction. I laid a hand on one of my obsidian knives, feeling the emptiness of Mictlan well up.

Mihmatini gave a snort of disgust, and stepped between both of us. “Enough. A pity Mother isn’t here any more. You’re behaving like children, both of you.”

”Neutemoc,” she said, firmly.

He turned to her. It must have been something in her voice, so reminiscent of Mother’s flat, deadly tones. “Yes?”

”Come here. I’ll renew the spell on you. And then we’ll pack.” She threw me an angry glance. “As to you… don’t think I’m on your side, Acatl.”

”You don’t sound as if you are,” I said, but she was already fussing around Neutemoc.

I almost went to lean against the wall, until I remembered the creatures, hungrily pressing themselves on the other side.

So I settled in the middle of the courtyard, watching Mihmatini draw a circle on the ground. I stood, trying to empty my mind of everything. But I couldn’t. In the bag at my back were the baby’s bones, so subtly, so incomprehensibly wrong. What had Eleuia tried to do with the baby – and was it for this failed attempt that she’d died?

 

We drew many curious glances as our small procession crossed the Sacred Precinct, heading towards the Duality House. Even at this early hour, priests were already out: through the fog, I thought I caught a glimpse of Ichtaca in his headdress and spiderembroidered cloak, leading a handful of black-clad offering priests back to the temple for the Dead.

Getting inside the Duality House required some negotiation: the guards weren’t willing to let in two dozen people. They sent for their superior – who turned out to be Yaotl, Ceyaxochitl’s personal messenger. I wasn’t sure whether his smug smile was an improvement on the situation. His eyes took in the slaves, Neutemoc, and Mihmatini, with Ollin sleeping in a wicker basket at her back, and four year-old Mazatl in her arms.

”I’m sure there’s a good explanation for all of this,” Yaotl said.

I wasn’t in the mood to provide much of anything to anyone. “There is,” I said. “I’ll give it to you once we’re inside.”

”I suspect I’d rather have it now,” Yaotl said.

I sighed. “Your walls are solidly warded. Is that good enough?”

Yaotl glanced at the adobe walls, and finally shrugged. “Warded against what?” he asked.

”Against things that might be trying to kill us,” I said.

Neutemoc was standing to the side, glowing with Mihmatini’s protection, brooding like a jaguar over lost cubs. He wasn’t talking to me, and he was avoiding Mihmatini, too. But then, we both were, after the verbal flaying she’d given us on the way there.

Yaotl looked again at the walls. “Protection. It’s irregular–” he started.

”You care about irregularities now?”

He smiled. “Possibly. However, you come at a good time. Mistress Ceyaxochitl wanted to see you. I suppose we’ll count all the others as your retinue.”

”Ha,” Neutemoc said.

”The sense of humour runs in your family, I see,” Yaotl said, as Neutemoc’s slaves all gathered in the first courtyard of the Duality House. Neutemoc found himself an isolated place, from which he could glare at me in peace.

”No,” I said, “I can’t say I ever had much of one.” I gathered my priest-senses, and felt the solidity of the Duality wards, woven into the very foundations of the walls by generation after generation of Guardians. This was a safe place, the safest haven magic could devise. The surest prison, also. I could well imagine how Neutemoc would chafe within those walls.

Mihmatini was laying Mazatl on the ground, wrapping a blanket around him with the help of an old slave woman. Then she settled down, and started rocking Ollin against her chest, singing a soft lullaby.

”Come,” Yaotl said. “They can get settled without your help.”

 

Ceyaxochitl was waiting for me within the Duality shrine: a vast, open space at the top of the central pyramid, with a limestone altar, a carved piece of stone, as flat as the surface of a still lake. There were no grooves to collect the blood, either on the altar or on the platform; for the Duality only took bloodless sacrifices such as fruit or flowers.

”I wasn’t expecting you so early,” she said. She was leaning on her cane as if rooted to the ground. Her face, like Mihmatini’s, was wan and tired. Above her, heavy clouds were gathering: the rains were coming, and would start soon, thank the Duality.

”He’s not alone, either,” Yaotl said, with some satisfaction.

Ceyaxochitl raised an eyebrow. “Not alone?”

”He’s brought a whole household.”

”Your brother’s?” Ceyaxochitl asked, quick to see the point. “I take it the creatures are still there.”

”Yes, and it’s getting worse. Your wards are down.”

Ceyaxochitl tapped her cane on the floor, thoughtfully. “They shouldn’t be. I’ll have to look into this. When I have priests to spare.”

”Hum,” I said. “I’d rather you focused on these.” I handed her a bundle of cloth, containing the bones of Eleuia’s baby.

Ceyaxochitl held it in the palm of one hand, and carefully started unwrapping it with the fingers of her other hand. “What is this?”

”Bones,” I said. “The bones of Eleuia’s child.”

”Mm,” she said, poking at them with one finger. “Odd bones, you mean.”

”Yes,” I said. “But I’m not sure if it’s relevant.”

Ceyaxochitl looked at them for a while. “They feel wrong. But I’m not sure why. I need to think.”

She was exhausted, it was obvious: this promise was likely all I was going to get. But I could not force her, in any case. “Why did you want to talk to me?” On the way there, I’d entertained the notion that she’d found a way to kill the creatures – even that she’d have found the sorcerer, and that both Neutemoc and I could go our separate ways. But it didn’t look to be the case.

Ceyaxochitl’s face was grave. “I have news, Acatl.”

Bad news, judging from her solemn voice. “The Emperor?” I asked. Though, if Axayacatl-tzin died and there was political upheaval, Ichtaca would deal with the consequences of that.

Then I remembered, with a twinge of unease, the conversation we’d had. I didn’t need further conflict between us.

Ceyaxochitl was shaking her head. “Yaotl?” she asked. “Can you make sure we’re alone?”

Now she was frightening me.

Yaotl came to stand near the top of the only stairs leading to where we were, his hand resting on the hilt of his macuahitl sword. Ceyaxochitl moved towards the altar – on which, I suddenly noticed, lay a piece of maguey paper.

She took it in her free hand before I could read it. “I haven’t been idle while you were away.”

”I didn’t think you would,” I said, finally. “Why all the secrecy?”

Ceyaxochitl handed me the piece of paper without another word.

There wasn’t much to see: it was just a drawing in red ink, and another in black ink, superimposed upon it. Together, both sets of lines formed a stylised figure: an animal, suggested by its claws and the shape of its maw.

”I don’t understand,” I said.

Ceyaxochitl sighed. “The red pattern is the one Yaotl took from Eleuia’s cheek.”

”And the black?” I asked, a hollow deepening in my stomach. Missing lines. If you added the black lines to the red, you had a complete pattern.

Ceyaxochitl raised a hand. “Promise me you’re not going to do something foolish about it,” she said.

She was really, really worrying me. Was the overall symbol some Imperial seal? “I can’t promise that until you tell me,” I said.

She was silent, for a while. “It was badly smudged,” she said. “Barely recognisable. But Yaotl has a good memory.”

”And?” I hated that she was toying with me, holding her answer at arm’s length.

She turned, to lay one hand on the altar, as if drawing strength from the stone. “It’s a ring,” she said. “A ring of engraved turquoise.”

My stomach twisted. Turquoise was an Imperial colour. “Who wears that ring?” Tizoc-tzin? Or – and my heart missed a beat – Teomitl?

”Only one man,” Ceyaxochitl said. “Quiyahuayo, Commander of the Jaguar Brotherhood.”

Commander Quiyahuayo. I’d met him, was my first, incredulous thought. He hadn’t sounded like… Like a sorcerer. Like a ruthless man, ready to sacrifice Neutemoc for the Duality knew what aim. Was I such a fool as not to recognise a sorcerer?

”That’s not possible,” I said. “Someone made a copy…”

Ceyaxochitl shook her head. “That would be going to a lot of trouble for not much. We had so much trouble tracing that ring, I don’t think it was meant to mislead us.”

”I don’t understand,” I said, stupidly. But I did. The Jaguar Knights were privileged warriors, heavily connected to the Imperial Family – especially their Commander. Ceyaxochitl was telling me that Quiyahuayo might be behind the abduction of Eleuia; but that I would have to tread carefully.

I thought of the bruises on Eleuia’s skin; of how no part of her had been left undamaged; of how Quiyahuayo had left Neutemoc to rot in his cage for days; of how he’d induced Huei to betray her husband and put her own life in danger; of how, because of him, she was now condemned to death. A cold anger crystallised in my chest.

I crumpled the paper between my fingers. “Thank you,” I said, and walked out before she could stop me.

 

Yaotl joined me as I reached the outer courtyard of the Duality House. “You’re about to do something foolish,” he said, flatly. For once, he didn’t sound amused or ironic.

“Do you have any other solutions?”

”Mistress Ceyaxochitl can appeal to the Imperial Courts–”

”That’s not a solution,” I said. “That’s just delaying things.”

”Sometimes, it’s the best thing,” Yaotl said. “Quiyahuayo has more influence than you believe.”

”No,” I said. I wasn’t there to dally in politics. I wasn’t there to be thrown left and right by events out of my control. I wanted justice.

Yaotl started to say something, but then met my gaze. He sighed: an unusual, uncharacteristic gesture. “It’s your choice,” he said. “Don’t say we failed to warn you this time.”

I shook my head. If my destiny was to rush in, like a fool, then so be it.

 

I was almost all the way to the doors of the Jaguar House when I realised someone had followed me. Neutemoc.

”You’re not safe here,” I snapped.

He stood, some paces away from me, stubbornly unmoving. “I heard you. It’s my Brotherhood, Acatl. My commander. I think I deserve an explanation.”

He still shone, faintly, with Mihmatini’s spell: a soft light, barely visible to my priest-senses, which spilled on the beaten earth under us. The rising wind whipped at his cloak, giving him the air of an uncanny monster.

I looked at the bulk of the Jaguar House, throwing its shadow over us – at the guards at the entrance. For company, I could do worse than Neutemoc: he might hate me, but he’d guard my back, if only because I was family and because his brotherhood had betrayed him.

”Very well,” I said, finally. “Come on.”

He walked some paces away, which suited me. I had no desire to start a long conversation. When we reached the Jaguar House, though, I saw the faces of the guards darken.

”You shouldn’t be here,” the first guard said to Neutemoc.

A faint, dangerous smile stretched Neutemoc’s lips. He spread his hands, palms up, as if to show he had no weapon. “I’m still a Jaguar Knight,” he said. “And I’m entitled to be here.”

The second guard growled. “You haven’t set a foot in here since your arrest, and now you come back.”

”It’s the coming back that matters,” Neutemoc said. He was hiding his anger, his sense of betrayal, very well, but I saw it in the slight tremor of his hands. “I want to see the commander.”

The first guard laughed, his fingers tightening around the shell-grip of his spear. “As if he’d see you at this hour?”

Neutemoc’s voice was slow, deadly. “Ask him,” he said.

The second guard looked at Neutemoc, clearly trying to decide whether he was jesting.

”Ask him,” Neutemoc said, “about Priestess Eleuia.”

I had been carefully folding the crumpled maguey paper into a small square. By the guards’ blank faces, they’d obviously not been involved in Eleuia’s abduction. Time to pass a discreet message to Commander Quiyahuayo, then. There was no reason to drag the guards into the shame of Eleuia’s murder.

”Tell him we found this on her body,” I said, handing my folded paper to the first guard.

He wasn’t long gone. When he came back, his face was set in a frown. “He’ll see you,” he said.

 

The Jaguar House was almost deserted at this early hour: a few Knights were playing patolli in one of the courtyards, and all the unmarried Knights were in their dormitories – some, by the noises wafting through the entrance-curtains, still engaged with various courtesans.

Neutemoc didn’t speak until we were a long way in. “I’d hate to be trapped here,” he said.

I shrugged. “You shouldn’t have come, then.” The dice were all Quiyahuayo’s in this House, anyway. At least, if I didn’t come back, Ceyaxochitl and Yaotl would know who held me.

It was a meagre consolation, but it sustained me until we reached Quiyahuayo’s room.

A delicate entrance curtain, adorned with images of the great Tezcatlipoca slaughtering the enemies of the Mexica, opened to reveal a wide room lit by two braziers. Lord Death and His wife faced each other in the frescoes on the walls. The god and His consort sat on Their thrones of linked bones, with the Wind of Knives a small, sharp shadow in the background. It was… wrong. They shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t their place.

The only furniture was a reed mat, and four large wicker chests. One of the chests, I saw, held piles of folded codices, laid on top of each other. Even from this distance, I could tell what they were: books of prayers to Mictlantecuhtli, detailed indexes to the minor gods of the underworld, spells to summon them and bind them to one’s will.

Altogether, it painted a picture of a man’s obsession with Mictlan: a trait ill-suited to a commander of the Jaguar Knights, a man who should have been sworn to the Hummingbird. It was clear, though, why he had chosen to use a beast of shadows to abduct Eleuia.

Commander Quiyahuayo, in full Jaguar regalia, was sitting on the reed mat, surrounded by discarded codices and by broken writing reeds. He held a clay tablet, which he used as a support to write on maguey paper. His gestures were slow, but precise.

He raised his eyes when we came closer. “My latenight visitors,” he said, seemingly amused. “Leave us, will you?” he asked the guard – who nodded, and exited the room.

Commander Quiyahuayo put down his writing reed, and tilted the tablet towards us. He’d been writing on the paper I’d sent him: he had drawn a circle around the symbol, like the shape of a signet ring.

He knew.

I glanced at the entrance-curtain. The guard was standing just behind it. I couldn’t tell with certainty, but there was probably a second guard as well. No choice, then; no way back; but I had known that before entering the room.

”So,” Commander Quiyahuayo said. “Do sit down.”

Neutemoc had been watching him with a mixture of horror and fascination. “Going through your pretence of politeness?”

Commander Quiyahuayo bowed his head. The quetzal tail-feathers on his headdress followed his motion, bending like stalks in the wind. “The proper gestures, at the proper time,” he said. “Incidentally, don’t even think of trying to attack me, physically or otherwise.” He said the last with a quick nod in my direction, having seen my hand tighten around one of my obsidian knives. “It would only make things more painful. And believe me, I have no wish to do so.”

He sounded sincere, and in many ways that was the worst. “More painful than you made them for Eleuia?” I asked.

”Ah,” he said. “Eleuia. Do sit down,” he repeated.

”I’d rather remain standing,” Neutemoc snapped. “Since you judge that what happened to me was just an inconvenience?”

”A minor thing,” Commander Quiyahuayo said. He set his clay tablet aside carefully. “Compared to the stakes.”

”What stakes?” I asked, wondering what kind of man would speak of human lives as if they were part of some vast game. Not a man I would like.

Commander Quiyahuayo’s smile was ironic. “Why, the Fifth World. What else do we play for?”

”I don’t understand,” I said, just as Neutemoc snapped, “Are you going to toy with us all night? Or just do to us as you did to Eleuia?”

Commander Quiyahuayo’s smile slowly faded. “You still care for the bitch,” he said, surprised. “Why? She tried to kill you.”

If Neutemoc was shocked at this, he didn’t show it. “So did you,” he said.

Commander Quiyahuayo shrugged. “Hazards of combats.”

This was obviously leading nowhere. Neutemoc was right: Commander Quiyahuayo was toying with us until he became bored. “What’s your interest in Eleuia?” I asked. “Does it have anything to do with her child – the one she had in the Chalca Wars, in a temple dedicated to the Storm Lord?”

Commander Quiyahuayo recoiled visibly, though he soon recovered.

”Tell me what is going on,” I asked. “We know about the child. We unearthed his bones. We know something is wrong with them.” I couldn’t help shivering as I said this.

”You’ve been busy, I see,” the commander said.

”Yes,” I said. “But I still don’t–”

He cut me with a frown. “You’re a priest, Acatl. Don’t you know what those bones are?”

Eerie, was my first thought. I remembered the feeling I’d had when holding them, the same feeling as

in Tlaloc’s shrine. “Powerful,” I said.

Commander Quiyahuayo shook his head. “Power.”

“I–”

Gently, Commander Quiyahuayo rested his hands on the reed mat. “Power incarnate.”

”The Storm Lord’s power?” I asked.

He shrugged. “The gods’ powers are constrained in the Fifth World. That’s why They find human agents.” He probed at the clay tablet on the ground as it were an aching tooth. “But agents are tricky. Unreliable. They have a will of their own. Some gods desire a vessel that is more… pliant, shall we say?”

I stared at him, my contempt forgotten. Surely… “Tlaloc made a child?” I asked. “He fathered a child with Eleuia?”

Commander Quiyahuayo smiled with the pleased expression of a teacher who had just managed to pass on knowledge. In the flickering light of the braziers, the fangs of the jaguar maw framing his head shone: a second, far more dangerous smile. “The Storm Lord wanted a child who would hold the full extent of His powers. To create life with those constraints is hard, more so when one is a god with no idea of where to start.” His voice was grim. “Hence the stillbirth.”

It was a fascinating story he was telling me, but I couldn’t trust him. Every one of his words was a lie. This was the man who had arranged Eleuia’s abduction. “Why should I believe you?” I asked. “You tortured her. You killed her.”

”I didn’t kill her. The bitch escaped.” Commander Quiyahuayo sounded angry. “As to why you should believe me… That, I’m afraid, is your own problem. If you don’t, it won’t change many things for me.”

He was right: either way, he had us at his mercy. I ought to have felt frightened. But I’d entered the Jaguar House knowing what I was doing. I wanted explanations.

Commander Quiyahuayo spread his hands. “Think of Eleuia. Of the kind of woman she was.”

The problem was that for a lie, it rang true, too much in keeping with Eleuia’s character. Bearing a child would earn her the Storm Lord’s favour: an easy way to rise through the hierarchy, borne on the god’s powers. And what better way to be safe from hunger than to have the favour of the God of Rain – He who made the maize flowers bloom?

”I still don’t understand,” I said slowly, to give me time to compose my thoughts. “The child is dead. Whatever Tlaloc wanted to do, it wouldn’t have worked.”

From outside came shouted orders and the sound of footsteps, running in the distance. Commander Quiyahuayo shook his head in distaste. “My, they’re noisy tonight. Pay no attention. Where were we? Ah yes. The child.” He smiled. “You see, there was a second child. And this one survived his birth.”

I stared at him, incredulous. “That’s why you tortured her?”

The shouting had moved away from us, and the sounds of running men were gradually dying down. A breeze stirred the curtain. Neutemoc cursed, and moved away from the draught.

”No,” Commander Quiyahuayo said. “I knew there was a child, made jointly by Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc, and borne in Eleuia’s womb. I know that it was given to a family of peasants, to raise as their own.”

By Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc. Of course. Xochiquetzal had brought the expertise about childbirth; and the Storm Lord the raw power. That was why the Quetzal Flower had lied to me about Mahuizoh and Eleuia. What a fool I’d been.

Commander Quiyahuayo went on, “And I also knew this: that this year is the year the child comes of age. The year Tlaloc can transfer His powers into him. What I wanted to know from Eleuia was where she’d hidden him.”

A god-child. A child invested with immeasurable powers, loose in Tenochtitlan, with no constraints placed on his magic. The living extension of the will of a capricious, angry, cruel god…

I shivered.

”I fail to see what the Storm Lord could want,” Neutemoc said. He was clearly uncomfortable with the thought of the gods directly interfering in the Fifth World.

I was more used to the idea. And there was only one thing that Tlaloc could want. Xochiquetzal Herself had told me.

He moves up into the world, becomes the protective deity of your Empire. And We – the old ones, the gods of the Earth and of the Corn, We who were here first, who watched over your first steps – We fade.

Xochiquetzal and Tlaloc had both been displaced by Huitzilpochtli’s rise to power.

”They want revenge,” I said.

”Not revenge,” Commander Quiyahuayo said. “Faith.”

Another draught lifted the curtains, and spilled rain onto the floor – and the world seemed to grow still.

”Acatl,” Neutemoc said, sharply.

Commander Quiyahuayo was still sitting on the reed mat, but now he was staring at two bloody gashes opening on his chest. Even as I turned towards him, more wounds opened, blossoming like obscene flowers.

Even without the true sight, I could guess at the mass of shapeless, frenzied things that would be fighting to reach his veins. The creatures were back.